Learning to See

Inspiration and practical advice for aspiring realist artists

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Three Daffodils

April 4, 2019 By: Paul18 Comments

Three Daffodils, oil on panel, 7 by 5 inches My last chance at daffodils! For the last few painting sessions I’ve been doing studies of daffodils. They’re fascinating to paint because of the high chroma and also the narrow value range from light to shadow. To do them well means a lot of careful control.

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A Daffodil, The Four Yellows I used to Paint It and the Eight Tubes of Paint I Used to Mix Them

March 29, 2019 By: Paul18 Comments

It’s spring in the Cotswolds and that means colour is back.

Specifically, yellows. Specifically, daffodils.

Now I know that a lot of people struggle with high chroma yellows, and the problem seems to be mostly in getting the shadows right.

It is tricky to get the shadow colours right, because you need to keep the chroma very high.

Do artists still need websites?

March 15, 2019 By: Paul21 Comments

It’s accepted wisdom now that if you’re a business, you just have to have a website.

If you’re a professional artist, making your income from your work, or teaching (or more usually, both) then you’re a business too.

So do you need a website?

Wild Oxlips – and Painting What’s In Front of You

March 8, 2019 By: Paul32 Comments

Every morning, I pile the kids into the car and we head off to school. Despite the chaos, I treasure this part of my day. I get to spend some time with my boys. They’re hilarious and they make me laugh, without fail, every morning.

I also get to drive through the breathtakingly beautiful countryside that we live in the heart of.

Early Spring Flowers – and Why Painting What You See Isn’t Always Enough

March 1, 2019 By: Paul8 Comments

You’ve probably often heard people say that you should paint what you see, what you know.Well I don’t think that’s the whole story.

Let me explain: What you know can trip you up, yes. But it depends what type of knowledge we’re talking about.

There’s a kind of knowledge that actually helps us see better, paint better.

How to have a successful blog even when you think you have nothing to share

February 15, 2019 By: Paul14 Comments

By far the most common worry I’ve heard so far from people on my Threads program is that they can’t run a blog because they don’t have anything to share.

I think you have something very compelling to share right now.

You just need to be strong enough to do it.

Why You Need to Start a Blog Today

February 11, 2019 By: Paul11 Comments

How do they do it?

How is it that some people have managed to make the break from being:

a part-time artist who doesn’t sell their work and has a day job they hate

to being:

someone with a website that people actually visit and who makes some income from their art?

Why your website doesn’t work (and how to fix it)

January 31, 2019 By: Paul5 Comments

You’ve set up your site. It looks great.

But nobody is visiting.

It’s like you organised a dinner party, cooked your best dish, got all dressed up…

And no-one turned up.

21 excellent questions about auctioning your paintings online – answered

January 25, 2019 By: Paul19 Comments

It’s new, it’s exciting, more and more people are doing it. It’s nothing short of a new paradigm for artists, an entirely new business model for us.

It promises complete independence. No gallery cut. You get to choose what you paint.

What follows is just my take of course. But I’ve been doing this pretty successfully for a couple of years now, and this is what I’ve learned from the front lines.

What you might not know about selling your work online

January 17, 2019 By: Paul30 Comments

It seems like the dream to a lot of people.

You just paint what you want and sell it directly on your site. No galleries taking 50% of your work. No-one telling you what to paint.

Nice and simple.

But there are a few things you might not realise when you start out – or even before you’ve started setting it up – that you need to think about.

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Hi, I’m Paul

I'm a (mostly) self-taught artist. I paint realism in oils, mostly still life. I share my work, my evolving process and what knowledge I've gained on my own learning journey here, in the hope that it might help you on yours.
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